Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation • Hacker News Board

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#321

Post by sizzle » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 12:33 AM UTC

29athrowaway wrote: post #217

georgeburdell wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a new grad, I interviewed at Qualcomm for an embedded software job. I studied hardware, and was very up-front with the hiring manager in the phone screen, and he responded “not to worry about it”. I was flown out to do an on-site interview, and the first thing that struck me, sitting in the lobby for 20 minutes while my first interviewer arrived, was that 100% of the employees who walked through the front…

I have met many ethnically Indian people that are American born. Perhaps many of the people you saw were American citizens as well. I have noticed that people of Indian heritage are encouraged to get a master's degree. Most of the Indians I've met have one.

I've been told by a handful of colleagues in tech that lot of them come to the US on a student visa via a US Master's program and that gives them time to settle in and build their network and intern at US companies and transition to an H1B position rather than applying with just their bachelor's degree abroad. That's why you'll see so many Indian folks with Masters and they are the most well adjusted, intelligent, and respected peers in my experience. This is in stark opposition to the ones that come through companies like Tata and Infosys and struggle to assimilate and keep to themselves (in my experience at various companies)

Anyone else care to share their understanding on the Indian H1B US Master's degree route to coming to the US, am I missing something here?

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#322

Post by 29athrowaway » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 12:49 AM UTC

sizzle wrote: post #321

29athrowaway wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have met many ethnically Indian people that are American born. Perhaps many of the people you saw were American citizens as well. I have noticed that people of Indian heritage are encouraged to get a master's degree. Most of the Indians I've met have one.

I've been told by a handful of colleagues in tech that lot of them come to the US on a student visa via a US Master's program and that gives them time to settle in and build their network and intern at US companies and transition to an H1B position rather than applying with just their bachelor's degree abroad. That's why you'll see so many Indian folks with Masters and they are the most well adjusted, intelligent, an…

There's a H-1B quota exemption for people holding master's degrees.

But that is not the only reason they go for a master's degree. Many do not need it for immigration purposes yet they obtain one regardless.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#323

Post by treyfitty » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 1:45 AM UTC

fredfoobar wrote: post #222

georgeburdell wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a new grad, I interviewed at Qualcomm for an embedded software job. I studied hardware, and was very up-front with the hiring manager in the phone screen, and he responded “not to worry about it”. I was flown out to do an on-site interview, and the first thing that struck me, sitting in the lobby for 20 minutes while my first interviewer arrived, was that 100% of the employees who walked through the front…

Are you sure that's the only reason you were dinged? be honest georgia tech guy. I see you. Why is this flagged? because I supposedly misinterpreted a "fake job interview"?

Why do you call him Georgia tech guy?

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#324

Post by jmpman » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 2:20 AM UTC

DarmokJalad1701 wrote: post #310

jmpman wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If employment was a representative percentage of the US, then you’d expect 1.3% of the employees to be Indian. He’s identifying that Indians are over represented by almost 76x. Let’s say that the company is made up of 100 engineers. In order to get 100 Indian engineers randomly, the odds are much worse than 3720 to 1. It implies immense discrimination by the employers which is systemic.

Is only 1.3% of prospective qualified candidates Indian? Using statistics from the general population is not relevant here.

Ok, let’s say qualified candidates are 50% Indian. If 100 of the employees are Indian, what is the probability of that being a random coincidence? (.5)^100?

I see this throughout industry. Even if the qualified candidates are 75% Indian, and a team of 10 is 100% Indian, what’s the probability that’s a coincidence?

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#325

Post by gmanis » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 2:36 AM UTC

adrr wrote: post #121

btilly wrote: post #6

H1B visas provide employers every incentive to lie to import cheap talent and work them hard. There are ways to meet the very real need to import the best brains from around the world. But H1B isn't set up to do this very effectively. Off the top of my head, a better option would be to allow immigration with a $60k bond to the government that has to be paid down at $1k/month by the current employer. With the employee…

Why not just stack rank h1b applicants by salary instead of using a lottery system? That forces the income levels up which should benefit Americans workers as well.

Because it will disadvantage people coming on H1Bs for non-software jobs.

May be grouping by job-type, location(cost of living concern) and then stack ranked might be better solution.

Although, who’s to then decide how many software engineers or artists to be allowed? Not an easy answer for sure.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#326

Post by gmanis » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 2:51 AM UTC

boruto wrote: post #306

This is good news for India. 60 percent of my classmates from a mid tier IIT work/study in US. This only increases competition levels for masters in India. GATE and PSU's would be frikin hard this and next year.

Unfortunately, I doubt this’ll happen. The set of kids going for MS are certainly not the ones looking at GATE. Besides, having a masters in India doesn’t improve your employability locally, so the opportunity cost of doing masters is quite high unless you’re driven by need to learn more or wanting to get into teaching.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#327

Post by pylua » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 3:52 AM UTC

foota wrote: post #319

pylua wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the high number of jobs being offshored and outsourced I would not be surprised if many Americans would gladly leave to increase their job prospects. It may be the case that people in the United States can no longer sustain a living here due to the high cost of living. Perhaps we will reach that point.

The United States had a very high employment rate leading up to the covid crisis. Lower than it had been during the 90s, but that was an anonymously propserous decade: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-rate#:... . It stood at roughly 62%. According to the same website India's current employment rate is ~50% (part of this likely due to gender imbalances) and you can bet that wages are much lower. T…

Yes, but having a job and staying in the middle class in any country is much better than entering a lower class after your position has been either eliminated, outsourced, or off-shored and you cannot find another.

However, maybe there is an argument that the middle class in a different country is worse off in terms of purchasing power than the lower American class. I'm not sure if that is the case, but either way it would be better to be gainfully employed in an industry of a person's choosing than to be lower class in an industry a person does not want to work in.

The threat of this happening in America, as I perceive it anecdotally, is much more real than the statistics suggest. I could see a scenario where only the top 20% of skilled professionals in major industries survive in the United States, while the demand for the bottom 80% is met by outsourced or off-shored professionals.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#328

Post by pandaman » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 4:55 AM UTC

guyzero wrote: post #308

president wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question. Why does nobody consider the fate of US university graduates that are up to their neck in debt and unable to find a job because companies would rather hire an H1B worker with 10 years working experience for cheap? There are large swathes of American workers that have been plunged into homelessness, drugs, or cannot feed their families because they lost their jobs to labor arbitrage. I understand that…

https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cps_charts.pdf The unemployment rate for university graduates in the US is 7.4%, which is not great, but is considerably lower than the civilian unemployment rate of 13.3% in that same report. In past reports the unemployment rate in IT fields is even lower than that of university graduates. US university graduates have been hit the least in the covid economic downturn. Please explain h…

There are two requirements for L1: working for a related (subsidiary, parent, etc) company abroad for 1 year and having "specialized" skills. Apart from the 1 year requirement it's weaker than H1-B as it does not put any requirements on education or salary. Furthermore, a big enough company can get a "blanket L1", which does not require DOL certification like H1-B. Did I mention there is no cap on this and you can have as many L1 workers as you wish?

1 year requirement is not a big deal: everyone using these has already offices all over the world so they hire somebody in a foreign office, wait one year and transfer to the US, considering that H1-B is a lottery it's faster than getting an H1-B from abroad on average. And, bonus, unlike H1-B, the L1 workers cannot easily jump to another employer: for a new job with a different employer they need to get some other visa, likely H1B, and, unlike a worker who already has an H1B, go through lottery. And if you fire them they will have much more trouble staying in the country: a new H1B application will take at least 6 months (file on April 1st, get the status on October 1st, if you won the lottery and did not get any RFEs) so they likely will run over 180 days out of status and get banned from the US for 3 years unless they find some other status like F (student), which won't let them work anyways so they will have to live off the savings they've made from their lavish L1 compensation.

Essentially it has all problems of H1 plus its own: less scrutiny, no salary requirements, stronger bond with the employer.

Hope this explanation helps.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#329

Post by pandaman » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 6:05 AM UTC

archenary wrote: post #256

1/ Yes, there are companies like Tata and Wipro who game the system to hire software developers at below market rate. This is absolutely a problem that should be addressed. Outright banning H-1B does solve the problem, but it is nowhere near optimal. For many skilled talents, H-1B is the only path to work in the U.S. Banning H-1B is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. 2/ No, there is no systemic difference in c…

> No one gets +/- X% just because they are a citizen or immigrant.

It's true. People get +X% because they negotiate. I believe citizens/LPRs have much stronger negotiation position: they can apply to companies, which do not consider H1B and they can walk away from any offer without catastrophic consequences even if they are between jobs so they can do "give me a raise or I walk" move at any time and not just when they have a next job lined up. I do not even mention supply and demand effects on the compensation for everyone here because it seems to be a very controversial concept.

> Many successful companies are founded or led by immigrants who now happily call the U.S. their home.

Can you give an example of such a company founded by somebody on one of the visas being discussed here?

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#330

Post by pandaman » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 6:50 AM UTC

Daishiman wrote: post #21

Supermancho wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone I know, including me? There is _no_ shortage of workers for virtually any industry. There is a shortage of people willing to work for submarket rates.

This is really not true. If you do hiring in tech, just finding qualified candidates is a long, arduous process way before even talking about compensation. There's a hell of a lot of problems with hiring practices worldwide, but qualified software engineers are not abundant.

>way before even talking about compensation.

Is not this the problem? The vast majority of vacancies I see as well as recruiters offers do not have salary. So I just ignore them. This is also why FAANG has no problem getting candidates and can haze them to their heart's content. Even though they do not list salary too, people have high expectations and apply in huge numbers.